Mental Health

Definitely change the medication. There are still a ton left to try. I'd also recommended picking up a non doomscrolling hobby. It doesn't need to be social. Something that moves your hands. Sewing, painting, writing, music (playing it or listening to it), clay crafting, knitting, learning dances, playing videogames - the goal isn't to fix everything. It's to figure out a calming ritual that also give you a sense of accomplishment.

Learn tricks like concentrating on your breathing to reduce panic. Breathe in for ten, hold for ten, release for ten. It can trick your body into thinking fear time is over. If your parents are unhelpful, there are books about managing anxiety and depression at the library. Learning methods from those can be a stopgap until meds help or you can see a shrink. I read some when I didn't have health insurance. Doing meditation with youtube guides can help, but there are some mental illnesses where it makes things worse. Give it a shot in the morning a few times, see if you get anything out of it. I used to do like 3 min sessions.

Try to find things that you want to be around for more of. An album, the next book in a series - positive things are best, but "i refuse to go before (hated elderly celebrity or whoever)" is fine, in the way that nicotine is awful for you but if it keeps you going until you find useful meds, it serves a purpose.

I'm not sure how to help with social anxiety. I still suffer from it, but it went from life devestating to occassionally a problem. It's tough because fears get better with careful, slow exposure, and most humans aren't predictable enough to do the "look at a picture of a bee until you feel nothing then move on" type thing without guidance. If it's any comfort, many people leave high school with drastically different levels of social skill. I've heard lots of LGBT people, ace people, people with overprotective parents, disability, mental illness, homeschooled kids - they've all spoken about how they felt like they didn't learn how to interact and be an adult until they were older. Lots of them figured it out in their 20s and up and ended up happy and around people they care about.

Just, take your time with things.

Not much to say other than a lot of that applied to me at that age and somehow I find myself over twice that age an entirely different person in circumstances I couldn't have guessed back then.

There is hope.

The first question I usually ask is if the person has seen a therapist because they are far more knowledgeable and trained than I am for giving mental health advice. I would also point out that in the long term, nicotine tends to make depression worse.

Definitely kick the vape habit, that can easily drag down your entire life and become a huge financial drain to boot.

If you use a lot of caffeine - try reducing or eliminating that as well. Chronic use can cause physical anxiety symptoms, and when your baseline is already elevated, it makes everything that much worse.

Try talk therapy in addition to medication. If the Zoloft helps reduce the SI, then it's definitely working, and instead of switching from it you might ask about the possibility of adding something else to blunt the anxiety.

Try meditation; it may seem like bunk at first, but a big part of social anxiety is focusing too much on yourself during interactions, and mindfulness meditation is basically exercise for that muscle of awareness (in a safe environment, when you are alone), which can potentially lead to the ability to catch yourself and redirect out of an anxious spiral. If that spiral is self-reinforcing, like you're afraid of feeling anxious which contributes to even more anxiety, meditation may also help you sit with the feelings when they arise and sort of empathize with them. Anxiety is a very valid emotion, it's part of our body's self-defense mechanisms, but if those mechanisms are activating in unnecessary situations, to a certain extent we have to teach our body that there's no danger. Easier said than done, but not impossible.

And of course - this is not medical advice, just some things that have helped me with similar struggles. please run these ideas by your doctors and/or mental health professionals before employing them.

The tricky part about anxiety is it could have many causes, but the most common cause by far is just accidentally developing a pattern of thinking that creates anxiety and getting stuck there. You've identified what the problem is, you've decided you want to change it, and now you're gathering information before you make plans and take action to begin changing it.

None of this will be as applicable to your specific situation as you would get from seeing a therapist. Consider doing what we call "opposite action." If you have the urge to doomscroll, intentionally do the opposite and go outside for a walk. If you want to spend the day alone in your room, instead go to a restaurant and eat by yourself but in public. Small things like this will help you break out of your patterns and begin to realize the world is not a very scary place. One of the most common misconceptions is that all the people out there will notice all your faults. In reality, most people couldn't care less about your faults, and you would be surprised how many people out there would love to connect with you. There are always going to be negative interactions sometimes, but try not to let those get to you and just move on.

Also, set a strict cutoff time at night for your devices, and stick with it. If you have trouble sleeping, take a melatonin, read a calming book, drink something warm, whatever you need to do, but keep your phone off. It's hard to overstate the negative effects doomscrolling and a lack of sleep are probably having on your mental health